Putting Global Warming Laggards on Trial

Putting Global Warming Laggards on Trial

That is perhaps best word to describe a class action lawsuit filed this week in the International Criminal Court in The Hague in Holland against national governments refusing to act on reducing carbon emissions.

The suit was filed by climate activist Danny Bloom who is asking for “US$1 billion dollars in damages on behalf of future generations of human beings on Earth - if there are any”

No Joke

The lawsuit is specifically seeking damages from “all world leaders for intent to commit manslaughter against future generations of human beings by allowing murderous amounts of fossil fuels to be harvested, burned and sent into the atmosphere as CO2, causing possible apocalyptic harm to the Earth’s ecosystem and the very future of the human species.

The point of the suit of course is not to wring money out of carbon emitters, but to embarrass the legions of laggard governments in advance of upcoming international climate negotiations next month in Poland. According to Bloom, the legal action “is about trying to protect future generations of mankind, humankind, and a positive judgment in this case will help prod more people to take the issues of climate change and global warming more seriously. We fully intend to make all world leaders of today responsible for their actions in the present day and age.”

This case is a legal long shot no doubt, but Bloom’s team said “”it’s up to the court to decide whether this case has any merit. We fully expect the court to agree to at least hear the case and make a responsible and measured decision later.”

It would also be the first case of its kind to seek to act on behalf of future generations for the irresponsibility of their ancestors. The need to put world leaders on the hot seat is very real. International climate talks like the one happening next month in Poland have happening for over a decade yet global emissions just keep climbing. A recent report showed that in spite of international commitments, carbon emissions of 40 industrialized countries rose by 2.3 percent between 2000 and 2006.

That said, those countries that signed Kyoto saw their overall emissions fall by 17% below 1990. The disgraceful outlier among those nations is Canada, whose emissions ballooned by over 20% in spite of having ratifying Kyoto. Canada’s Prime Minister Harper has called Kyoto a “mistake” and he seems openly contemptuous of such international efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. Mr. Harper is of course not alone in the responsibility for Canada’ terrible climate change record. The Canadian public recently handed him another mandate in a general election.

Back to Mr. Bloom. His lawsuit seems directly targeted towards such irresponsible nations like Canada that have refused to take this issue seriously. If he wins, Bloom is planning to donate the $1 billion in damages to the Nobel winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Previous Comments

Great, let him take governments to court because that would force AGW warmists to prove their case. that is, they would have to PROVEAGW is actually happening and would have to PROVE that even if it is happening that it would be bad for humanity. And both those attempts will fail, and could quite likley put an end to AGW when it does fail.

“Proving” in civil court that global warming is happening and is caused by the activities of humans will be on the balance of probabilities, that is whether a reasonable person truthfully informed would think it so. Unlike scientific “proof” which must be absolute, proof on the balance of probabiities is like proving someone is a smart Alec troll.

AGW promponents will be required to present scientific evidence in court that supports the premise of A) humans are causing the climate to change because of emissions of CO2 only. B) that a warming climate will be bad for humans and the planet. Scientific evidence will be required to support those two positions, and descenting evidence will also be required to counter AGW. By taking this to court your side is opening the door for the conuter evidence to be presented. It cannot be supressed or not allowed to be presented. A court of law must hear all sides. Should this proceed, you people will be in for a big surprise. Besides, I expect that court to reject the claim period so it won’t even get to that stage.

JR, if you want to be treated with any level of respect on this blog then quit your dishonesty. Please refrain from posting dishonest lies. If you have done any reading at all in reputable sources you should know that you are being dishonest in your comments.

Wakefield said “Or are you unaware of the bulling (sic) tactics the IPCC imposed on it’s reviewers.” That is a complete fabrication (aka LIE). Which of your denier web sites are you quoting to get such a dishonest comment? No wonder you are treated with disrespect when you make slanderous lies about scientists who are doing their job, and a very good one under very trying circumstances.

You are the one who has never read anything about the IPCC. Go and do some serious reading, not the denier websites you are addicted to. You are a denier troll. You keep repeating the same trash over and over again. You insult the very scientists who are showing how serious the effects of AGW will be and you never answer questions. You never back up your claims with reputable sources. In other words you are just wasting everyone’s time who tries to explain the science to you. Your mind is completely closed and you have no idea about science.

Mr Wakefield may be stupid, I’m not sure. But clearly he is a believer. For the results of faith based poiicy on matters of science we needn’t enquire any further than Leonardo DaVinci. Or say Easter Island where they cut the last tree.

He’s a true-believing, AGW skeptic-fundamentalist, unable or unwilling to consider the millions of pages of research that has proven the case of AGW far beyond any reasonable doubt.

Like Christian fundamentalists (the Biblical literalists) who cannot understand how evolution has any scientific validity and are unable or unwilling to make sense of the facts. (I have some Christian beliefs, but am quite perturbed by the rise of Creationism or Intelligent Design in the US and elsewhere, as it is completely flawed.)

Like the free-market fundamentalists who are unable or unwilling to understand how an unregulated economic system got the world into the recession, and maybe soon a depression, that we’re in right now.

Like Socialist fundamentalists who would trust the flawed opinion of a low-life tinpot dictator like Hugo Chavez over the views of a reasonable, respectable character like Tony Blair.

how come I was involved for 15 years fighting creationism side by side with scientists, and researched and taught myself geology from which I debunked PO halos as evidence for a young earth (with the help of many scientists) and got my results published. Explain that.

Oh, and for the record, I’m an atheist and proud of it. I do not believe anything.

I never said you were a Christian fundamentalist nor believed in Young-Earth Creationism. I said that your debating tactic and lack of comprehension on the issue of AGW mimics those of the Creationists with respect to the very well established theory of Evolution. It is simply a similarity in terms of ideological blindness and unwillingness to consider the mountain of evidence for a scientific issue to which you are in opposition.

Remember what happened to the evolution deniers in Dover? They were made to look stupid because truth prevails in a court of law. The creationist/ID types who were prone to lying stayed away since they feared perjury.

Yes, lets get the AGW deniers in court. It will show up their lies once and for all.

Because AGW is promoting a positive statement, that AGW is true, then the onus is on your side to provide the evidence. Denying has nothing to do with it as in science there is no such thing as denial. What there is is healthy skepticism, which you people go to great lengths to prevent happening. You people do not allow for any kind of healthy skepticism, which is a requirement in any other discipline of science. The only reason you people do that is you are afraid that your orthodoxy has no basis of fact. This will be exposed in any court case. Be prepared for a huge disappointment.

Have you heard of the IPCC reports, the thousands of papers documenting the scientific evidence for AGW? Have you read anything on the subject apart from the denying lies in the anti-science websites (climatefraudit, Wattswrongwithwatt, Icecap etc). Why do you keep making such a fool of yourself by denying what has been proven over and over again? And I do realize that you types keep saying that science cannot prove anything 100%. That just shows that you do not understand science or the scientiifc method.

Since you do not know me at all you are making blind ascertions about me. I have a very good grasp of how science works. I’ve been published in a geology journal debunking a creationist claim. Have you been published giving a scientific description and solving a scientific enigma? I have. So drop your nonsence about my abilities.

Is there no place at all for any healthy skepticism of AGW? You do not like those sites because they do not fit your world view. A rational person would not reject any evidence, but would instead read up about what supports and does not support AGW without a priori biases. That’s what I do. You obviously do not. That’s called dogma.

Do you honestly think that any court will not allow all evidence to be presented? AGW is a lot of wild predictions with little evidence to back it up. Ignores evidence that does not support AGW wild predictions. No court will allow a one sided presentation. Government Lawyers will demand that all evidence be presented. And there is a lot that does not support AGW.

You are convincing nobody on this blog with your continual repetition of what can only be described as utter nonsense. Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of science and the scientific method now realizes that your rantings are not based on any scientific basis but are merely rooted in your political mindset and your obvious anti-science views. Publishing a so-called “science paper” in a non-science journal (I believe it is an education journal) does not make you a scientist. Understanding science and discussing it in a rational manner is what is needed.

Which is what I have tried to do all along. Yet what I get is insults back. I ask again, is it possible to be skeptical of AGW without getting negative attacks back?

Fact is, my paper was a science paper. It was reviewed by scientists in the field. Its conclutions were based on the evidence. What it does show is my ability to understand science, and how science works. Realize I have no formal training in geology. I had to teach myself before I published. So any attempt to criticize my ability to understand science does not stand up to the evidence. I guess, in your mind if I do understand science and reject AGW there is something for you to fear?

So keeping on the topic, do you think any court will disallow any evidence? Do you think that skeptics would be barred from presenting evidence? No, they will be allowed. What this attempt will do is open pandora’s box. The label “deniers” you people try to impose on us will be shown to be what it is, an attempt to shut up any possible question of the scientific merits of AGW. No other science discipline does this. Only AGW does. Why is that? It’s because you do not try to discredit ligitimate skepticism unless you have something to hide.

If you are so convinced that AGW is based on sound science, then you have NOTHING to fear from skeptics who povide counter evidence, right? So why try and shut us up?

I would love to see the science of climate change brought to a court of law. Remember, you can’t be locked up for telling lies in such places as climatefraudit or whatswrongwithwatt but telling whoppers while under oath is completely different. I would suspect that the majority of the deniers who are actual scientists will not get themselves involved in such a court case. Compare that with William Dembski in the Dover trial.

I would love to see a Behe-like moment when, after telling the court that there was no evidence on a certain subject the lawyers kept handing him paper after paper, book after book showing that he was completely wrong. He had to ask the judge if he could put them down since they were too heavy to continue to hold.

Bring this on, can I assume that you will be willing to make your “scientific” statements under oath? Love to see the cross examination from one of the plentiful AGW experts.

Sadly, I don’t think it will come to court this time but it will eventually come to that.

PS - note to administrator: why do I not get a spell checker icon in Firefox but I do in IE?

The only thing that would make me (and thousands of other scientists who are accepting of AGW) change my mind would be the following:

1. show via sound experimental evidence that carbon dioxide is not a green house gas (disproving over a hundred years of experimental evidence)

2. show that its concentration is not accumulalting in the atmosphere (shown conclusively for the past 50 years or so)

3. show that the extra carbon dioxide does not have a fossil fuel fingerprint

4. provide evidence that there is no causal linkage between high temperatures in the geologic past and high concentrations of carbon dioxide found then (500 million years or so ago)

5. explain how the present pattern of changes in temperature (more increase at the poles; increased night time temperature versus day time temperatures; warming troposphere but cooling stratosphere) can be attributed to other causes apart from greenhouse gas theory.

If you are the sceptic you claim to be then you must have evidence as described above to prove your point. Please present it, otherwise you are just another denier. And just as a point of clarification, your evidence must come from the peer reviewed scientific literature, not the denier web sites you seem to frequent. You are of course at liberty to conduct your own research, write it up and have it accepted for publication in the peer reviewed scientific literature.

1) It is, but the question arises. It is the MAIN component of global warming. (It isn’t, water vapour has more influence by many orders of magnitude) There is debate about that. 2 items shows this. The cooling spell from 1945-1975 in spite of a 4 times increase in CO2 emissions (don;t claim it was aerosols unless you have a peer reviewed paper to back up the claim. There is none). And the current cooling trend, of 11 years now, in spite of a 15% increase in CO2. Thus there is no 1:1 link between world average temp and CO2 emissions. Other natural factors are involved that can and seems must have, a stronger forcing.

2) No dispute. It is.

3) no dispute, quite likely is.

4) There is some and there is not. We are at a current CO2 low in the geological past, in fact we are quite anomalous. Levels in the past were 3-4 times more than today. And what do you mean by “high temperatures”? If your mean more moderated average temperature, then correct. 55myo the average temp was 8C more than today and was a time of a great biotic explosion. Palm trees grew in Greenland. The Sahara was a tropical forest. “High temperature” in the past has meant no change in the maximum, but an increase of winter temps. Every period of “global warming” has been a time of great biotic activity. All the major oil deposits were from eras of warmer average temps.

5) First off, we are now globally cooling. There are a number of peer reviewed papers claiming we could see 30-40 years of global cooling similar to the last little ice age. Also, both poles have not warmed. The Antarctic has actually cooled and more snow has been deposited than is lost from the north pole. Second, the sun’s output must have some influence (otherwise there would be no energy to trap with the CO2). Solar scientists have seen the sun move into a less active phase. That must have some impact on the climate here. But there is another component that affects the climate that is not included in your attempt to curb CO2. Land use change. Our chopping up the worlds’ forests for farmland is very likely to change the climate. So where is the attack on producing more farmland? If farmland were to be shown to have more impact on climate than CO2 would you be advocating a ban on the world’s farmland?

That 11 years of cooling is complete bulls***. Stop repeating that! What is actually true is 11 of the warmest years in history have occurred in the last 13 years. Also, 2005 and 2006 were at, nearly at, or even warmer than 1998. The graphs at the site below show this:

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcrut3/diagnostics/comparison.html

Look at the second one, specifically. Also, you notice a slight cooling in 2007. That was a result of a fairly strong La Nina and not related to any sort of long-term global trend of cooling as the worst-of-the-worst skeptics state so intellectually dishonestly. (Have they ever heard of climate variability? I guess not, especially those like Richard Lindzen and Tim Ball who jump up and down whining that the world has cooled since 1998, without considering that 1998 was one of the strongest El Ninos in the past 500 years, maybe more.)

You claim that “Even RealClimate Admits the last decade has cooled” but give to no link to where RC ever claimed this. You link to 4 denier sites as proof of that. You are nothing but a denier troll whose comments on this site do nothing to further our understanding of climate change and what should be done to minimze any deleterious effects it may have.

Richard Wakefield Says: 14 May 2008 at 9:23 AM
This begs a question. Should you lose the bet, what ramifications does that have for AGW theory? How many years of cooling will it take before AGW theory is debunked? Let’s see a commitment from RC staff on this. How many years of continued cooling will it take for AGW theory to be rejected? You like bets, then place one on that.

[Response: None. About 20. Like I said. Lot’s of bets have been offered - few taken. - gavin]

So Gavin is admitting that 20 years of cooling, 9 more, will be enough to make AGW falsefied.

BTW, those other links, the data comes from satelites and other emperical observations, as noted on the graphs themselves. Do you honestly think these sites invent these graphs?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7376301.stm

“The Earth’s temperature may stay roughly the same for a decade, as natural climate cycles enter a cooling phase, scientists have predicted. “

You are just being stupid (as always). Do you not realize that there is a difference between weather and climate. Of course to deniers like you it is a good tactic to always raise confusion. Fortunately, most intelligent people realize that the only confusion is in your mind.

Statistically there has been no decrease in temperatures but a constant increase. Check out Tamino’s blog at:

http://tamino/wordpress.com/

or John Cross’s blog at:

http://www.skepticalscience.com/

If you read the latter blog you will understand why no-one thinks that you are a skeptic.

You must be funded by Big Green Machine. Al Gore paying you to be here? Maybe Hansen’s millions are paying you? Are you a paid spokesman for Desmog? They got $300,000 plus to start this site, they continue to be funded by the radical Suzuki foundation, is your present here in exchange for money? Why else would you be such an intolerant bigot?

The reason that I keep pointing out all your dishonest attempts at fudging AGW is that I am a scientist. One of the first requirements of science is honesty. That is why I keep telling you that you are not a scientist, I don’t need to see your CV, your dishonesty would have you thrown out of any reputable science department before you could produce your first fraudulent set of data.

Intolerant bigot? My, my such language from someone who gets upset with my mild language. I call a spade a spade, and if you don’t like it you know what you can do about it.

You responses show that you really do not understand the science behind AGW.

1. You do not understand the difference between a “forcing” and a “feedback”. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas forcing, water vapour is a GHG feedback. This is discussed in any backgrounder in climate science. Nobody is accusing CO2 as being the only GHG, This is a lie put out by the deniers. Other GHG’s are ALWAYS included in models and discussions.

2 and 3. Funny that you accept that but deny AGW.

4. Your comments are full of denier tripe. Have you ever heard of tectonic shift? Do you not think that may explain “Palm trees grew in Greenland. The Sahara was a tropical forest”? Have you ever considered how much human food is available in tropical rain forests? Human kind has evolved, along with modern agriculture, in times of moderate temperatures, not the much higher temperatures found in the past. There are plenty of reports showing decreases in our most important crops (rice and wheat) due to climate changes (use Google if you want references).

5. More denier tripe. check out what statisticians have to say about “we are now globally cooling”. As for your comments about “There are a number of peer reviewed papers claiming we could see 30-40 years of global cooling similar to the last little ice age” there is no scientific basis for these purely speculative statements. Real astro-physicists are not making any such claims. If you knew any astro-physics at all you would know that the sun goes through 11 year cycles which do not show up in long-term temperature trends. The long-term trend is up, the solar cycles are essentially on a horizontal plane. Again, do some serious reading, not the denier tripe. As for changing land use, who has ever claimed that it is not factored into climate models and interpretation of past climate? Only the small band of vocal deniers. Modern farming practices are not good for climate change, we need to adopt a more sustainable form of agriculture and get away form the “land mining” mind set of today’s multi-national ag. companies and their government allies.

You are nothing but a denier troll whose claime to know anything about science and the scientific method are completely false.

1) It is not fact that CO2 causes changes in climate. That’s the theory of AGW. Explain the drop in temp from 1945-1975 with peer reviewed references.

2) I accept these as measured fact. I do not make the leap of faith that they cause climate change to the extent you take on faith.

3) LOLOLOL!!! That’s funny. Greenland was once part of North America, it’s always been at that latitude and I can prove it. The Metasedementary Belt Boundary Zone of the Grenville geological Province here in Ontario runs to the east though Quebec. It then shows up in line in Greenland, then again in the north of Scotland and then into Norway. It’s all the same geological feature. Thus 55myo Greenland grew palm trees at the location it is currently at.

As for higher temps, again I will claim that the max temp did not increase back then but instead the average temp increased due to increase in the winter temps. Less freezing times. BTW, we survived many warm trends in the last 3 million years, including warmer than today.

5) http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=35857

“Dr. Bruce West, the chief scientist of the U.S. Army Research Office’s mathematical and information science directorate, sees a strong link between the dynamics of the sun and the Earth’s ecosystem.

In the March, 2008 issue of Physics Today, West wrote, “The Sun could account for as much as 69 percent of the increase in Earth’s average temperature.””

Sunspots: And the End of Global Warming
http://kurtstack.newsvine.com/_news/2008/11/14/2112728-sunspots-and-the-end-of-global-warming

“More evidence is gathering that the sun, not greenhouse gases, drives our climate. Records going back thousands of years show a close correlation between sunspots and climate.

The theory is that sunspot- related effects influence the number of high-energy cosmic rays reaching the atmosphere and that these cosmic rays affect cloud formation.

Very soon, a major experiment will be set up to test this theory. If it is shown to be correct, that alone will be sufficient to sink the hypothesis of manmade global warming. ”

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352241,00.html
Physicist Phil Chapman, the first native-born Australian to become an astronaut with NASA [he became an American citizen to join up, though he never went into space], said pictures from the U.S. Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) showed no spots on the sun.

He said the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7 degrees Centigrade.

“This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930,” Chapman wrote in The Australian Wednesday. “If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.”

Since denier is a broad description of anti-science types like you please check the following links and tell us which category of denier you fall into.

http://www.theworld.org/?q=node/22729

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/11/22/134614/33

Note I don’t agree with Mathew Nisbet’s comments.

So tell us what kind of denier you are. My guess is that you are a political denier. Your favourite politicians (right wing nutjobs) deny AGW therefore you have to deny it too. Your denial is not science based as you would like us to believe.

Wakefield said: “3) LOLOLOL!!! That’s funny. Greenland was once part of North America, it’s always been at that latitude and I can prove it. The Metasedementary Belt Boundary Zone of the Grenville geological Province here in Ontario runs to the east though Quebec. It then shows up in line in Greenland, then again in the north of Scotland and then into Norway. It’s all the same geological feature. Thus 55myo Greenland grew palm trees at the location it is currently at”.

Not what the professional geologists say. Here is a quote from “Geoloical History of Greenland - four billion years of earth evoloution” by Niels Henriksen:

“The mountains and fjords of Greenland preserve a record of nearly four billion years of Earth history - a story of mountain building, volcanic eruptions, primitive life and ice ages. During the vast period of time, through processes of continental drift, Greenland has journeyed from the southern hemisphere through the tropics to its present polar position”.

There are many other sources where you can verify the drift of Greenalnd over the past 500 million years.

We aren’t talking about 500 million years ago, we are talking 55 million years ago. During that time, during that warm spell, Greenland had palm trees and was at the same latutude as it is now. The Atlantic Ocean was 200 million years into its opening at that time. Before the Atlantic opened Canada, Greenland, Norway were all one large continent. That continent was at the same latatute 200myo as it is today. Greenland has only moved east or west, not north. There is no spreading ridge south of greenland that is moving it north, only the mid atlantic ridge moving it west relative to Europe.

It’s called Plate Tectonics. And I met with one of the discoverers of the spearding ridge theory that cemented PT. G. Brent Dalrymple. He showed me his lab were they discovered the magnetic strips on the sea floor.

Have you even met and talked with a famous scientist?

The facts I mentioned are available at the Mine Library of the Ontario Geological Survery, which I spent many months in preparing my paper. You can go and see it for yourself.

Most of the papers on line have to be purchaced, but some exist. Just google “Grenville Province” Greenland. This google book shows the relationship A History of the Earth - Google Books Result

This too. http://journals.hil.unb.ca/index.php/GC/article/viewFile/3301/3818

Greenland and Norway linked 50 myo http://www.cosis.net/abstracts/EGU05/02692/EGU05-J-02692.pdf/ So unless Norway some how jumped over Europe to be at the current location from some tropical location, you are wrong.

Unless you have detailed understanding of this situation you are out of your league here. I did 2 years of research on this very area for my paper. Talked to experts on the subject. What I have told you is a fact. Greenland 55myo was at the same latitude as it is today.

You claim to be a scientist because you published ONE paper in a “science journal”. Well a list of over 8000 science journals does not include Journal of Geological Education (or its more recent title Journal of Geoscience Education). I claimed that it was an “Education” journal. However, that seems like it is wrong since it was not listed in a listing of the top 70 to 80 (by impact factor) education journals.

The Eocene and Oligocene epochs (55 to 23 million years ago) comprise a critical phase in Earth history. An array of geological records1, 2, 3, 4, 5 supported by climate modelling6 indicates a profound shift in global climate during this interval, from a state that was largely free of polar ice caps to one in which ice sheets on Antarctica approached their modern size. However, the early glaciation history of the Northern Hemisphere is a subject of controversy3, 7, 8, 9. Here we report stratigraphically extensive ice-rafted debris, including macroscopic dropstones, in late Eocene to early Oligocene sediments from the Norwegian–Greenland Sea that were deposited between about 38 and 30 million years ago. Our data indicate sediment rafting by glacial ice, rather than sea ice, and point to East Greenland as the likely source. Records of this type from one site alone cannot be used to determine the extent of ice involved. However, our data suggest the existence of (at least) isolated glaciers on Greenland about 20 million years earlier than previously documented10, at a time when temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were substantially higher.

Wakefield, if you could only understand simple English you would have seen that my comments on Greenland were directed and your (wrong) comment that “Greenland was once part of North America, it’s always been at that latititude, and I can prove it”. Well that is just junk, just like everything else you post on this blog. I pity any scientists who had to carry you along on a joint project.

Honesty is number one in science, accuracy is number two. You fail miserably on both counts.

First, give up on using the term denier. It does not apply to anyone who has a proper normal skeptical view of AGW theory. Again I ask, is it possible to be skeptical without getting negative labeling?

Second, it’s not up to skeptics to provide negative evidence against AGW. It’s up to the proponents of AGW to provide positive evidence, and that will come out in court.

Third, it will be asked in court what evidence would falsify AGW. So what would falsefy AGW?

Forth, again I ask, would skeptics be barred from attempting to provide evidence?

http://dyn.politico.com:80/printstory.cfm?uuid=D0C4924D-18FE-70B2-A808D77A9C1FFFD3 Climate change skeptics on Capitol Hill are quietly watching a growing accumulation of global cooling science and other findings that could signal that the science behind global warming may still be too shaky to warrant cap-and-trade legislation.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.

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